Q: My husband and I moved into our new house a year ago and are now ready to tackle the garden but neither of us has a clue how to start going about it. Would you recommend using a garden designer? Eithne W, Co Dublin
A: There’s no doubt that a good garden designer or landscape architect will help to safely steer you through the process by avoiding the common mistakes and pitfalls that inevitably confront any novice gardener. They’ll be able to expertly assess your site in terms of its growing conditions, particular challenges and possibilities, and provide a scaled design drawing and planting scheme that can either be built and planted in a matter of months or implemented in stages over a staggered period of time. Like a piece of tailor-made clothing, that resulting design will follow careful consultation with you both as clients and reflect your personal preferences in terms of style, choice of plants, and even the colour scheme.
Can it save you a lot of time and produce the sort of outstandingly good garden bone-structure and sense of place that you, as beginner gardeners, wouldn’t yet be capable of? “Yes” is undoubtedly the answer. Great garden designers and landscape architects are like artists, deftly creating outdoor spaces that marry their many practical requirements – access, storage, shelter, play areas etc – with the equally important environmental and aesthetic roles that they play.
On the other hand, the process of creating a garden can be a deeply personal one that some prefer to do by themselves, even if they do make mistakes along the way. Your budget is another consideration. If it’s a tight one, then you might prefer to channel those funds towards plants or hard landscaping essentials instead of towards the expense of a design.
But on balance, I would say that the time and costly mistakes that the latter will save you as well as the joy that it will bring is well worth the investment. To start the ball rolling, have a look at the website of the Garden & Landscape Designers Association at glda.ie which gives detailed listings for its members based around the country.
